Student Nurses

Angela and Jackie, student nurses from Canada, will be at TICH on a six week attachment. They're both 21-years-old and will work/study at TICH and the district hospital to gain a better understanding of health issues in developing countries. Last Saturday, Ed, me, Jack, Angela and Jackie walk into town, to show them around. We walk along a paved road and pass cows. Jackie says she's not sure she'll ever get used to seeing cows on city streets. Or turkeys. Despite the bad roads and strange language, Angela and Jackie seem to be acclimating well. Seem to be... They're on campus today and tell me they've spent the last two days at the district hospital. They look shell-shocked. Emotionally void. Angela says she's seen more people die in two days than she's seen die in three years in Canada. They say the hospital has two and three people per bed and no bed sheets or pillows. A pregnant woman, 19 years old, walks a day and a half to reach the hospital. She is malnourished. Her husband arrives at the last minute, just before the baby is birthed, with supplies required by the hospital: IV tubes, dextrose, syringes, needles, catheter, razor blade (in case surgery is required), etc. The husband is 40-years-old. He drops the supplies and leaves. The baby is born with cracked lips, a sign of malnutrition. The mother is afraid to breastfeed, saying she has no milk. When Jackie rolls the mother's nipple, colostrum streams out. But the mother is afraid to breastfeed and Jackie thinks the baby will not survive. A second mother gives birth to twins. Both are extremely underweight. One dies immediately, the other is jaundiced. The district hospital has no treatment for jaundice at the hospital. Jackie thinks the baby will die anyway simply because it is too tiny and malnourished. Angela has been working in the children's ward, which holds twice as many patients as they can handle. Children are sick with malaria, pneumonia, diarrhea, AIDS. This is a government-run hospital asking mothers-to-be to provide their own medical supplies and failing to provide clean linens on beds. Government run. Many Kenyans blame the nurses and doctors for negligence, saying they're in the jobs just to make money and do not care about the people. Corruption exists in hospitals where equipment and drugs are stolen and sold. One doctor was recently found to be taking government drugs to his private practice. When people would show up at the government hospital, he'd tell them he had to leave but they could see him at his private clinic, where he would then sell them the drugs they would have received free at the hospital. Corruption is a way of life for Kenyans, who are used to paying for services that should be free. It's engrained in the culture and has a name: T.K.K., Tai Kitu Kidogo, "Give Something Small." It's hard to imagine what would happen in the US or another western culture if children were crowded onto a dirty hopsital bed or slept on the floor, where they died from lack of resources. The outrage would be swift, long-lasting and severe. Here, it's just the way things are, just another day. Angela and Jackie say they'll take me to the district hospital one day. I tell them I'll take them to Nyalenda, to the slums, so they can meet the widows and orphans they've been hearing so much about. It's a rather pitiable exchange.